Page 75 of Lay Down the Law

She snuggled closer, and a wave of tenderness warmed him. Her face was smooth and innocent in the dim light slanting in through the window. The image of her with her head thrown back in ecstasy, her hair spread out on the pillow, came to him like an apparition. His body stirred with the memory. Heat. Urgency. A thousand other feelings and sensations he didn’t want to deal with curled inside him, but he shoved them back, disturbed by their power.

Raising his head, he glanced at the alarm clock on the night table. Midnight. He reached for the phone and dialed Hector’s cellular. Concern slithered through him when a recording told him the cell phone user had left the service area.

“Damn.” Fighting a rise of alarm, Nick sat up and redialed. As he listened to the same recording a second time, alarm transformed into something icy and cold. From memory, he punched in the number of the physical rehab center in Indianapolis. A female clerk answered on the second ring.

“This is Nick Ryan. Has my daughter, Stephanie Ryan, or Emily Thornsberry checked in yet?”

Computer keys clicked at the other end of the line. “We’ve got the reservation, Mr. Ryan, but they haven’t checked in yet.”

Cursing, Nick disconnected, his mind racing. Hector should have had them checked in by now. Where the hell were they? If they’d run into problems, why hadn’t Hector called?

Nick jumped when his cell phone chirped, then he snatched the phone up and curtly uttered his name.

“Chief!”

The fear in his deputy’s voice jolted him to red alert. “What’s wrong?” he asked, wondering in a small corner of his mind why there was panic in his own voice.

“Two men…armed. They forced us off the road. Tied us up. Damn.” Hector’s voice broke.

Nick’s nerves went taut. A dozen scenarios scrambled through his mind, none of them good. “What happened?”

“They got her, Nick.”

Hector didn’t need to say who for Nick to know. White-hot terror screamed through him. He didn’t remember rising. He didn’t remember crossing the room and stepping into his trousers. “Where’s Stephanie?”

“They got her, Chief. Good Lord, they took her.”